The Acoustic Guitar Method

I have bought a lot of guitar learning books and a few DVDs. I feel I am beginning to be an expert, not with guitar, for " learning beginner guitar". For intro to learning, if you don't have a teacher, this DVD is great. A DVD is much more valuable than a book I think because guitar is really about hand movement. A book has pictures of how a chord should look... DVD you see David making the changes, and giving you some practice tips on learning new chords. David has a great laid back attitude as well. Learning guitar at first is really about chord changes and getting them down, and repeating them over and over until your have them in your muscle memory. Not the most fun at first but will payoff later. I saw the one bad review that some reviewer gave saying he only gets to the "F chord". I don't know what he meant by this, was expecting to cover barre chords? Well David covers most of the open chords. Barre chords you can move into after you have the open chords down.The one challenging thing with the songs on this DVD is that they are very fast. Some upto like 200 bpm! For a beginner this is very difficult. He didn't really explain well that you should use a metronome, and start slow, and then build up to this(or close to this) I decided to try and get to around 160 bpm which is still fast, and the songs sound decent. So that's the reason I am taking the 1 star away. It would have gotten the 5 stars if there was some more tips on practicing. Most all books and DVDs I have seen don't have anything on how to practice properly, and how to tackle certain problems.Just a few other comments. I like this DVD better than:Fender Presents: Getting Started on Acoustic GuitarThe Fender DVD is good, but it covers a LOT of topics(barre chords,scales, power chords, theory) quickly. It's a good DVD, but I think tries to cover too much.A good intro book to complement this DVD is:Guitar Basics: Essential Chords, Scales, Rhythms and Theory by BuckinghamThis book+CD is very thin, not a lot of blah,blah, but starts off with chords and strumming patterns. You'll just have to practice,practice,practice. Some of the chords are quite hard and I do sort of skip them(Gmin anyone?)Both don't focus much on music theory,reading music, learning note names,where they are on the fret... but to me you can learn that matter with scales, and later on.For reading music,notes, frets and notes you can get: Hal Leonard Guitar Method....Hal Leonard is good, but doesn't focus as much on chords, and strumming. It covers them, but is not it's main focus IMHO.Lastly the Acoustic Guitar method DVD is great to start practing singing and playing. Not an easy feat I have found.In summary get this DVD!

I give a rating of 3.5 - 4 . It covered a lot of material and after a few weeks I'm having a lot of fun working with the DVD. What would of made this perfect is if they added a Pdf file with the music in Tab. Most was ok for me until he covered melody.It would be a lot faster learning with the material written out in front of me instead of running the dvd back and forth to do it myself.Even if it cost a little more adding a file it would be well worth the extra money.

This two disc set is like a complete 6 month course in guitar. For the price of, perhaps, a single lesson, you get what amounts to 6 months of lessons from a low-key, funny, and talented teacher.The first disc is useful for those just starting out. If you do not know how to play chords, learn a chord, turn off the DVD (even after only 15 minutes) and practice. In a few days of practicing, turn the DVD back on and go for 'lesson 2", or the next chord.If you are, like me, someone who has been playing for awhile and is self-taught, take the entire course. Do not skip much in disc 1 even though disc 2 is more appealing. Get the basic strums, bass patterns, etc. Find out, like me, if you have "holes" in your guitar education and fill them. In other words, use this wonderful 2 DVD set to build a solid foundation, and then, after mastering Disc 2, move on to other Homespun DVD's, expanding your education, while learning to play songs.This is what most excites me: I get to firm up my foundation, learn techniques, but also learn songs as I go along. After all, it is the songs that we enjoy playing the most.In this set, you get all 3.

I connected with this video and its laid-back host from the moment I heard the opening bars of the tune he plays for the menu page. ("Bars" is a term he helpfully explains early on for the benefit of those whose knowledge of music is sketchy.)That was EXACTLY the way I wanted to play the guitar! - as opposed to how I've played ever since my college days during the heyday of the '60s folk/blues revival, i.e., artlessly banging on strings while holding down various cords, hopefully one at time. My knowledge of a few basic cords did give me a bit of a leg up; nevertheless I decided to follow every step of his curriculum so as not to miss anything, and sure enough I usually found at a minimum something new to me or a better way of doing something, like a different way of holding down "G", or subtle hints about holding the pick. Hamburger's easy lesson plans strike me as something a total beginner would be able to easily follow. It's fun playing along with him and generally enjoying his company, even if only virtually. I haven't even finished it yet, and already it's revolutionized my playing.

This is one of the best courses for guitar.I use it together with David Hamburger's book "The Acoustic Guitar Method (complete edition") that comes with three CD's, and covers about the same territory but can serve as a great printed supplement and exercise tool. The Acoustic Guitar Method, Complete Edition Book/CD (String Letter Publishing) (Acoustic Guitar) (Acoustic Guitar (String Letter)) Hamburger presents a great selection of songs, mostly Western & Country. As is the nature of these songs, some are dealing with heart break of lost love ("Bury me beneath the willow"), death of mother ("Will the circle be unbroken") and murder of a loving father ("Stagolee"). Therefore, I will not give this excellent learning tool as a present to my 10-year old godson who is learning the guitar. (A country singer here recently told the audience that after he had sung the murder song Stagolee, a teenage girl came up to him and said: "Please, please, never sing this song again!")For the more sensitive guitar students, I recommend: "Will Schmid & Greg Koch: Guitar Method Books 1-3 (Hal Leonard). These guys should also produce a DVD. Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Complete Edition: Books & CD's 1, 2 and 3

Great teaching aid!